12 years ago, I was sitting in a product review meeting as the new marketing director at a computer manufacturer.
I watched the team approve product number 12 for a range that already had 11, and no one outside the building could tell them apart.
Nobody in that room thought they’d done anything wrong. Every product had a champion and a customer story behind it. Add them all up and you get a range that makes perfect sense internally and absolutely nothing to the person paying.
Apple had this problem on steroids in 1998.
What did Apple do?
Apple cut its entire computer range down to one 2-by-2 grid: consumer desktop, consumer portable, professional desktop, professional portable. One product per box, four products total, replacing a range so sprawling that Steve Jobs himself couldn’t say which Mac to recommend to a friend. Every buyer got an obvious box to stand in, home or work, desk or bag.
In a presentation that year, Steve Jobs said Apple had 15 product platforms, plus what he called “a zillion variants” of each.
Even he couldn’t work out which Mac to recommend to friends; that’s a fairly savage diagnosis from the bloke running the company.
The fix was a 2-by-2 grid:
- Consumer desktop
- Consumer portable
- Professional desktop
- Professional portable
One product would earn each box. 4 products in total.
The Power Mac G3 and PowerBook G3 filled the professional boxes; the iMac became the consumer desktop, and the iBook later completed the grid.
This did plenty for Apple’s engineering focus. Jobs said a smaller range meant the A-team could work on every product and refresh them more often.
But the more interesting question is what the grid did for the buyer.
It made the range legible. You could look at those 4 boxes and find your exact need covered:
- For home or work
- For working at your desk or on-the-go
Easy.
What does the research say?
Choice overload shows up when the options are hard to compare and the buyer already has a fixed idea of what they want, exactly the trap a computer range falls into. That’s why cutting Apple’s range to something instantly comparable mattered more than the number 4 alone suggests.
You’ll often hear this explained as “choice overload”: give people too many options and they freeze.
Nice theory. Slightly messier evidence, unfortunately (the kind that survives in decks long after the evidence stops).
A 2010 meta-analysis found the average effect of having more choice was close to zero. Sometimes a bigger range hurt. Sometimes it helped.
A later review found overload becomes more likely under 4 conditions:
- the options are hard to compare
- the decision is difficult
- the buyer isn’t sure what they want
- or they want to spend as little mental effort as possible
Computers can tick the bloody lot. Processor codes, tiny specification differences, unclear model names, a purchase you might live with for 5 years.
So the useful lesson is more precise than “sell fewer things.” It’s about making the differences easier for the buyer to understand.
A clear range sends a different message altogether: we know who this is for.
What’s my take?
Apple’s 4-box decision made every product feel deliberate instead of accidental. A confusing range makes buyers doubt themselves: is there a better model I’ve missed, or a price gap designed to catch me out? A clear range removes that doubt before it starts, and removing doubt is most of what confidence in a purchase comes down to.
That’s important because a confusing range can make every option look weaker. The buyer starts wondering whether they missed a better model, a feature they’re about to lose out on, a price difference designed to catch them out, or a support problem waiting to smack them after they buy the thing.
A clear range sends a different message altogether: We know who this is for.
And let’s face it, confidence is very persuasive. Humans love to be confidently led.
Any product range is worth testing with 4 questions:
- Can a buyer tell who each option’s for?
- Can they explain the price difference in one sentence?
- Does every option have a distinct job?
- Would removing one make the decision easier without cutting something buyers still need?
That final question will make product managers twitchy, no doubt.
However, the reality is that products gather internal supporters. Somebody owns the revenue, and somebody remembers the customer who asked for it. Nobody fancies volunteering their SKU for the firing squad.
But a range built around internal comfort can become a maze for the person paying.
Apple made its computers easier to desire by giving every choice a reason to exist.
So here’s a thought. Which product or service in your company survives only because everyone’s too scared to kill it?
